
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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STATE OF THE V'X 



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SPEEC 




HON. JOHN H. REAGAN. 



OF TEXAS 



DKLIVEHED IN THE HOUSE OF REPEESKNTATIVES, JANUARY 15, 1861. 



The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state 
of the Union — 

Mr. REAGAN" said : 

Mr. Chairman: We stand in the presence of great events. 
When Congress assembled some weeks ago, the control of the 
condition of the country was in its hands. I came here with a full 
knowledge of the deep discontent that prevailed in a portion of 

the States, and I felt then satisfied — as all must be satisfied now 

that they intended to insist unconditionally and unalterably upon 
being secured in their constitutional rights in the Union, or on o-o- 
ing out of it for the sake of self-preservation. I came here with 
the hope that such measures might be brought forward by those 
who had the power to control this question, as would assure the 
people of the South that they might expect future security for their 
rights in the Union. I believe that if the Republican members 
had manifested, at the beginning of this session of Congress, u 
purpose to respect simply the constitutional rights of all the States 
and of their people, all these difiiculties might,'before this time, 
have been settled. I do not mean to be und,er3tood, in makino- 
that remark, as indicating that it would have been necessary for 
them to have acceded to any extravagant or unreasonable demands. 
Such demands would not have been made, unless they deem it ex- 
travagant and unreasonable to insist upon plain, specific guaran- 
tees of those rights which were assuredly secured to us under the 
present Constitution as it was formed, and which have been secured 
to us by the action of all departments of the Federal Government 
down to this time. This, I believe, was the condition of things 
when Congress assembled at the beginning of this session. In 
view of the fact that Republican members of Congress have held 
sullenly back, and have neither proposed nor accepted any com- 



promise, but have declared that they have none to make, four 
States are now out of tlie Union ; and many others are in rapid 
motion to go out. Unless something caa now he done to arrest 
this movementf- tlier§ will be but few southern States, if an}', ac- 
kncMt^rledging allegiance to the Federal Government on the 4th of 
MarSh next. -t ''^ 

This state of thitigs halving been prodnced, what can change it? 
I cannot say now that it is possible to arrest the movement. It 
is certarnljLalX. but impossible now to arrest it. It is my duty to 
speak on this occasion as I would speak in the presence of the fu- 
ture — as I would speak in the presence of the calamities invoked 
on this people by the action of this Congress, and by a portion of 
the States of the Union. No men on the face of the earth, at any 
period of the world's histor}^ were ever charged with a more solemn 
responsibility than that which rests to-day on the American Con- 
gress. It calls not for passion, but for calm deliberation ; not for 
the maintenance of mere partisan supremacy, but for the ascen- 
dency of patriotism ; not for the domination of the one party and 
the overthrow of the other, but for a constitutional Union based on 
the action of the people, and on the support of a Government 
friendly to all its parts ; not nurturing and fostering the one and 
hostile to the other, but just and fair to all alike. These are the 
great principles which should animate our action if we intend to 
preserve the Union. On the other hand, if fifteen States come 
here — minority as they may be in Congress, in the popular masses, 
in wealth and power — telling you of their discontents, and the cause 
of them, and if you tender no olive branch, no conciliation, but 
sternly deny them their constitutional rights, and tender them on 
the one hand submission to ruin, and on the other powder and ball, 
who is it that does not know what their decision will be, whatever 
may be the consequences? 

Is there a cause for this discontent? \t has been interrogatively 
suggested that there was none. It has been partially admitted by 
others that there is some cause. This is no time to come here and 
suppose that, by special pleading and ingenious statements of the 
cause of controversy, we can change the judgment of posterity as 
to the attitude of public affairs in these times. It is beneath the 
dignity of the statesman ; it is beneath the dignity of the men who 
control events, to resort now to special pleading to misrepresent the 
cause of the grievances which now exist. History will tell what 
those causes are. All of you know to-day what they are. For 
twenty years the anti-slavery strength has been growing in the free 
States of this Confederacy. In recent years it has become aggres- 
sive. The question tendered to the people of the South is well ex- 
pressed in the language of the President elect — that this agitation 
must go on until the northern mind shall rest in the belief that 
slavery is put in a condition of ultimate extinction. That was his 
sentiment. That is the sentiment of the great leaders of that party. 
I presume that few members of that party would to-day, in their 
place, deny that such was its purpose. I take it for granted, that 



we may act on the presumption tliat that is its purpose. What 
justice is there in that ? Let us, for one moment, revert to the his- 
tory of the Government to know whether it is just in it to assume 
the responsibility of so grave an act. I need hardly say that, at 
the date of the Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen 
colonies of the Union was slaveholding. At the date of the forma- 
tion of the Federal Constitutien, twelve years after that, twelve of 
the thirteen States of the Union were slaveholdiuic States. Is it to 
be presumed that twelve out of thirteen States made a Constitution 
which was intended to recognize slaves as freemen and equals ? 
It would be asking too much of human credulity to believe such a 
i:)roposition. If anything were necessary to repel the idea, it is 
supplied by the bare fact that the convention wliich framed this 
Constitution, and gave it to us as the charter of our rights and 
liberties, provided in it for keeping open the African slave trade 
for twenty years after the formation of that Constitution, so that 
the white race might go on under authority of the Constitution 
and acquire a larger amount of propert}^ in negro slaves. The in- 
terests of a portion of the States were found not to require African 
slaver}'"; and these States disposed of their negroes, not so numer- 
ous then, it is true, as they were in some of the more southern 
States. Then they made their States what they call free States. 
Th.e southern States raised no objection, and had no right to raise 
any objection, that these States has chosen for themselves to ex- 
clude negro slavery ; but they had rights under the Federal Con- 
stitution — the right to protection and security — which it was their 
duty to insist upon. That is all they have done. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I cannot dwell longer upon this portion of 
our histor}' ; but I will ask attention to another feature of this 
question. I invoke the attention of Republicans for a moment, to 
what would be the result of the success of their doctrines if they 
will not cease this agitation until they can rest in the belief that 
negro slaver}' is put in process of extinction. But, before I do it, 
I wish to make one remark, not altogether connected with ray 
argument, but which may not be unserviceable. We. have for 
years back heard of what is termed the irrepressible conflict. It 
has emanated from men who have been eulogized for their states- 
manship and their learning. It rested on the idea of irrepressible 
hostility between the interests and institutions of States of the 
Union. It has been invoked for partisan success and for sectional 
prejudice. It has culminated too soon for its authors. And here, 
to-day, behold the fruits of the irrepressible coniiict. Every man 
who looks forward with an eye to the interests and hopes of the 
country, has foreseen what the irrepressible conflict meant — that 
it meant subjugation and humiliation to the South, or the dissolu- 
tion of the Union. You have reached now its logical end. Are 
you, then, longer prepared to eulogize a doctrine, and eulogize its 
authors, which has brought upon us so precipitately such fruits as 
these ? 

But to the point to which I was calling attention. I ask Repub- 



licaus to-day — and I would to God I could throNA^ my voice to every 
city and town and village and hamlet in the whole North, and 
could be heard by every citizen there, and answered by all — to trace 
the history of the African race through all the centuries of the 
past, in every country and every clime, from their native barbarism 
in Africa to slavery in Brazil and the West Indies, and everywhere 
else that you find them, and then come to the southern States, and 
compare the condition of the negroes there with their condition 
anywhere else, and answer me if they are not in the enjoyment of 
more peace, more blessings, and everything that gives contentment 
and happiness, than any other portion of that race, bond or free, 
at any other age or in any other portion of the world ? "Will any 
man deny that they are? And if they are, is it the part of philan- 
thropy to turn them back to the condition of the rest of their race, 
and, in doing so, destroy the hopes and the social and political fu- 
ture of fifteen States of this Confederacy? Then, again, I would 
ask this other question : Suppose these slaves were liberated : sup- 
pose the people of the South would to-day voluntarily consent to 
surrender $3,000,000,000 of slave property, and send their slaves 
at their own expense into the free States, would you accept them 
as freemen and citizens in your States ? ["No!" "nol" from the 
Republican side of the House.] You dare not answer me that you 
w^ould. You would fight us with all the energy and power of your 
States for twenty years, before you would submit to it. And yet 
you demand of us to liberate them, to surrender this §3,000,000,000 
of slave property, to dissolve society, to break up social order, to 
ruin our commercial and political prospects for the future, and still 
to retain such an element among us. 

Again : I ask you, do you believe, one of you — does any Eepub- 
lican in this Union believe this day that, if you could purchase a 
separate Territory, occupied by no human being, if you could liber- 
ate all the slaves to-day, take them to that Territory, frame a gov- 
ernment for them, and give them money to start it — do you believe 
that, for one year, or in any future period, those negroes could 
maintain a government in peace, giving security to life and person, 
and prosperity and repose to society ? I venture to say there is not 
a Republican in this Union who would hazard his reputation by 
answering that question in the affirmative. And yet, in religion's 
name, in God's name, in the name of justice and humanity, you 
are invoking every feeling that can stir the hearts of the people to 
press on with your irrepressible conflict ; never halting, never stop- 
ping to consider, as all statesmen must consider, the relative condi- 
tion and capacities of the races ; and what is to be the end of the 
conflict which you invoke, with the certainty, on your part, that it 
must result in breaking up this Republic, or in the subjugation 
and the infliction upon the South of the worst despotism that can 
be forced upon any eouutry. I address you with all the earnest- 
ness of my nature ; I address you in the name of humanity, in the 
name of our common country, and of the cause of civil liberty. 

Again; if I wanted experience to prove the truth of my suppo- 



sition that such would be the calamitous ettect of carrying jour 
principles to their ultiniatc results, the history of the past furnishes 
that experience. In 1793, when red republicanism assumed its 
reign in France, and the wild delusion of unrestrained liberty seized 
upon the minds of the masses, there was a wretched fanatic who 
undertook to proclaim tlie equality of every human being, and he 
proposed the liberation of the slaves in the French West India co- 
lonies. The idea chimed in with the popular delusions of the day, 
and a decree was passed that all the slaves should be free. The 
colonies would not accept the decree, and did not until the army of 
France was brought into requisition, and the slaves were set at 
liberty. But, what was the result to the colonies ? Great Britain, 
catching the contagion from France, determined upon the policy of 
liberating the slaves in her West India colonies; but she was a 
little more humane and liberal. She did make compensation to 
the owners of the slaves liberated, to the amount of, perhaps, one- 
eighth of their value. But what was the fruit of those decrees to 
the colonies interested ? What was the result of conferring the 
boon of freedom upon the African race in these colonies ? What 
was the condition of these colonies prior to the execution of these 
decrees ? They were the homes of civilization, contentment, pros- 
perity, and happiness; their farms were cultivated, their cities were 
alive with business, their ports were covered with the canvass of 
the fleets of all nations, bearing to and fro the commerce of the 
world. 

Those decrees were passed. What followed ? The white race 
was exterminated by all the implements and modes of cruelty and 
torture that ingenuity and barbarism could invent. Yes, sir, ex- 
terminated. The Herds then glovi^ing under the hand of industry 
soon went back into jungle, inhabited by the wild beasts of the 
forest ; grass grew in the streets of their cities, and ships departed 
from their ports to return no more. And they have gone on in this 
experiment of liberty from revolution to revolution, carnage suc- 
ceeding carnage, until at this time they have relapsed into and pre- 
sent a spectacle of savage African barbarism. Gentlemen of the 
Republican part}', are you now prepared to go on in your aggres- 
sions until you have inaugurated the same scenes for your southern 
brethren? I say your brethren, for hundreds and thousands of 
them are your common kindred, living in the enjoyment of the 
blessings of the same system of Government, and enjoying the 
prosperity common to our people. Are you prepared to inaugurate 
a system which can only end in such a result? Are you prepared 
to attempt to force us bv lire and sword to submit to such a fate as 
this? 

Your people have lived in the habitual violation of the Consti- 
tution and laws of Congress, for many years, to our serious injury, 
and we have never invoked the doctrine of Federal coercion against 
your States. Your Legislatures have passed laws nullifying a pro- 
vision of the Federal Constitution which ought to have secured 
protection to our rights. The members of your Legislatures had 



6 

to commit oliicial perjury in voting- for these laws. And your Gov- 
ernors had to do the same thing iu signing and approving them. 
And a number of 3'our States have passed laws to line and impri- 
Bou their own citizens if they should aid in executing the fugitive 
slave law — a law passed in conformity witli the requirements of the 
Federal Constitution, and which has been adjudged to be constitu- 
tional and binding on all, by the Supreme Court of the United 
States. 

During all the time your States have stood in open rebellion 
against the Constitution and laws of the country' — and this in car- 
rying out your aggressive and hostile policy against us — we have 
heard nothing of Federal coercion, not even from our northern 
friends who are now so ready to turn the Federal bayonets against 
us. But now that the southern States have determined that they 
can stand these lawless and hostile aggressions on their rights no 
longer; now that they have determined not to live under a Gov- 
ernment hostile to these rights, and that their safety and self-pre- 
servation require of them to resume the powers they had delegated 
to the Federal Government for their common good, but which are 
to be used under Republican rule for their ruin, we hear continu- 
ally from Republicans of the treason and rebellion of the South. ; 
and they are loud and seemingly sincere in their demands for the 
enforcement of the laivs by Federal guns. And I regret to see that 
northern Democrats, some of them, seem to be equally forgetful of 
our wrongs, and of abolition aggressions on our rights, and equally 
anxious for this gun-powder enforcement of the laws, against the 
authority of State sovereignty in the exercise of their highest and 
most sacred duties^ — the protection and defense of the rights of 
their own citizen, who can no longer look Tor security or protec- 
tion under a Government to be administered by hostile enemies 
under a violated Constitution. 

But again : I wish to call your attention to another point. What 
is to be the effect upon the material prosperity, not of the South 
alone, but upon the jS"orth, upon Great Britain, and" upon the whole 
of continental Europe, from the success of your policy ? Let me 
ask you to consider — for it would not seem that you have contem- 
plated it for yourselves — this luct : during the last year, the foreign 
exports from the southern States amounted to $250,000,000. Of 
this amount §200,000,000 consists in the exportation of the single 
article of cotton. That cotton supplies the material for your north- 
ern manufacturers of cotton good^. It employs the millions of 
capital engaged in that business, it employs the time and services 
of hundreds of thousands of operatives who work there. It em- 
ploys the investments made in your northern cities in the shipping 
in our coastwise trade and foreign commerce. It employ's the un- 
told millions of Endish capital engaged in the manufacture of cot- 
ton goods. It employs the millions of English capital engaged in 
the transportation of cotton, manufactured and unmanufactured. 
It supplies with bread the hundreds of thousands of operatives em- 
ployed in the manufacture of these goods in England. 



^ 7 

Now, suppose you succeed in striking down African slavery in 
the United States: you strike down not only our propperit}- in the 
South, and inaugurate instead all the horrors of Africanized bar- 
barism under which the French and British West India colonics 
now suffer ; you strike down all the investments made in the manu- 
facture of cotton goods; you bankrupt your capitalists; you beg- 
gar your operatives; you bankrupt Great Britain ; you beggar mil- 
lions til ere ; you inaugurate starvation and famine in Great Britain 
to an extent ten-fold beyond that which will be suffered here. You 
require of us unconditional submission ; and if that is not rendered, 
you propose to employ oil the force of the Aimy and Navy to sub- 
jugate us. 

Mr. CURTIS rose. 

Mr. REAGAN. The gentleman from Iowa will excuse me. I 
do not know of any one to whom I would listen with more pleas- 
ure than to the gentleman from Iowa, but my time will not permit 
me to yield to interruption. 

Mr. Curtis. I merely want to put in a general denial to all the 
propositions the gentleman is stating. 

Mr. ASHLEY. I call the gentleman from Iowa to order. 

Mr. REAGAIST. I Was going on to say that you contemplate, as 
a part of the means of your operations, the blockade of our ports. 
Well, I grant that you have the ships, and you could blockade our 
ports if none but ourselves were concerned. But let me warn you 
in advance, that like a distinguished general of a former war, you 
will find a fire in the rear as well as in front when you undertake 
to do it. Your own people will not permit you to do it. Your 
commercial cities will not permit you to do it. Your manufactur- 
ers will not permit you to do it. But suppose your people should 
be so demented as to allow you to destroy their interests : do you 
think Great Britain would permit it? Will she permit 3'ou to 
bankrupt her capitalists engaged in the manufacture of cotton 
goods, and in the commerce growing out of cotton, and to starve 
her millions of operatives? If your own interests, and all tiie dic- 
tates of humanity and justice, will not induce you to forbenr from 
the madness and folly which must produce such results. Groat Bri- 
tain and continental Europe will promptly require you to r:iise the 
blockade of our ports. 

Gentlemen, I mention these things, and you can consider them 
if you think they are worth considering. We are dealing with 
questions which involve not only our interests, but the interests of 
all the civilized and commercial world. 

You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you 
annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation 
laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manu- 
facturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with 
the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your rail- 
roads, your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of trib- 
ute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange 
which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the 



8 

South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers for northern 
capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage 
a relentless crusade against our rights and institutions. And now 
you tender us the inhuman alternative of unconditional submission 
to Republican rule on abolition principles, and ultimately to free 
negro equality and a Government of mongrels or a war of races on 
the one hand, or on the other secession and a bloody and desolating 
civil war, waged in an attempt by the Federal Government to re- 
duce us to submission to these wrongs. It was the misfortune of 
Mexico and Central and South America, that they attempted to 
establish governments of mongrels, to enfranchise Indians and free 
negroes with all the rights of freemen, and invest them, so far as 
their numbers went, with the control of those gov-ernmeuts. It was 
a failure there; it would be a failure here. It has given them an 
uninterrupted reign of revolution and anarchy there ; it would do 
the same thing here. Our own Government succeeded because 
none but the white race, who are capable of self-government, were 
enfranchised with the rights of freemen. The irrepressible conflict 
propounded by abolitionism has produced now its legitimate fruits — 
disunion. Free negro equality, which is its ultimate object, would 
make us re-enact the scenes of revolution and anarchy w^e have so 
long witnessed and deplored in the American Government to the 
south of us. 

AVe do not intend that you shall reduce us to such a condition. 
But I can tell you what your folly and injustice will compel us to 
do. It will compel us to be free from your domination, and more 
self-reliant than we have been. It will compel us to assert and 
maintain our separate independence. It w^ill compel us to manu- 
facture for ourselves, to build up our own commerce, our own great 
cities, our own railroads and canals; and to use the tribute money 
we now pay you for these things for the support of a government 
which will be friendly to all our interests, hostile to none of them. 
Let me tell you to beware lest your abolitionism and irrepressihle- 
covfliet statesmanship produce these results to us, and calamities to 
you of which you dream not now. 

The question again recurs, what has brought about the perilous 
condition of the country? Why, sir, to hear the taunts that are 
made to the South; to hear the epithets of "treason," "rebellion," 
" revolt ;" to hear the declarations and pretensions made in the 
North, one would think that the people of the South were a reck- 
less, wayward people, seeking only to do wrong. How? In what? 
Let the question be echoed and re-echoed all over the Union — all 
over the civilized world. How ? In what have the South done 
wrong ? Have the}' sought to violate the Federal Constitution ? 
Have they sought to violate the laws? Have they asked you to 
sacrifice any material interest ? Have they asked you to sacrifice 
any principle that is not in confiict with the Federal Constitution 
and laws? I wish this question could go everywhere and sink into 
every heart, and be answered by every human being. How have 
we done wrong ? In what have we wronged you ? History is to 



9 

answer the question ; and it is to answer it in the face of the con- 
sequences which must follow. 

I stand here to-day to say that if there be a southern State, or a 
southern man even, who would demand, as a condition for remain- 
ing in this Union, anything beyond the clearly specified guarantees 
of the Constitution of the United States as they are, I do not know 
of it. I can speak for my own State. I think I have had intimate 
association enough with her people to declare that they have never 
dreamed of asking more than their constitutional rights. They are, 
however, unalterably determined never to submit to less than their 
constitutional rights; never, never, sir! You can rely upon that, 
Mr. Chairman. 

I know, sir, that we have been in the habit of listening to each 
other under the impression that speeches here were made alone for 
political effect. 

[A man in the gallery here disturbed the House by loud talking.] 

The CHAIRMAK If the disorder in the gallery be repeated, 
the Chair will call the Speaker to his place, in order that the dis- 
orderly person or persons may be ejected. (Cries of "Put him out!") 

The Doorkeeper then ejected the person who had created the 
disorder. 

Mr. REAGAK. Mr. Chairman, I was going on to say that we 
demand nothing but what were our clear constitutional rights. We 
will submit, sir, to nothing less. We ask no concessions as a mere 
favor to us. We demand our constitutional rights. That, sir, is 
the language of freedom. We demand them, and we intend to 
have them, in the Union or out of it. 

I regret that in the course of this discussion an assumption is 
made, and arguments are predicated upon it, that it Avas simply a 
question whether we have the right to rebel against the Federal 
Government. Those arguments have seemed to go upon the hy- 
pothesis that we neither knew nor appreciated the blessings of this 
Union ; but, on the contrary, we hated and wished to destroy it. 
And here I must say that, on yesterday, I was deeply pained to 
hear certain arguments advanced by the distinguished gentlemen 
from Illinois and Ohio, [Messrs. McClernand and Cox.] Their 
arguments seemed to proceed upon the assumption I have stated. 
I was the more pained, sir, because I have seen the gallant battles 
they have fought against the abolitionists and the "irrepressible 
conflict." I know their experience, their judgment, and their ca- 
pacity. I know, sir, that they are representative men of a great 
and gallant party. I felt profound regret to see such arguments, 
proceeding upon such an assumption, come from those gentlemen. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, if I can I will correct some of the errors 
upon which the arguments advanced against us seem predicated. 
We do rightly estimate the value of the Union. We do rightly 
estimate the value of the blessings of this Government. We have 
loved and cherished the Union. Nobody has a better right than I 
have, although I say ao myself, to make that declaration. I have 



10 

loved the Union with an ahiiost extravagant devotion, I have 
fought its battles whenever they were to be fought in my section of 
the country. I have met every sectional issue, at home in my sec- 
tion, and in my State particularity, which was attempted to be forced 
upon the public mind, and which I thought would mar the har- 
mony of the Democratic ; party. I have fought the battles of the 
Union without looking forward to the consequences. I have fought 
them in times when the result for the Union seemed hopeless. '' If 
I could believe we could have security for our rights within the 
Union, I would go home and tight the battles of the Union in the 
future with the same earnestness and energy that I have done in 
times past. 

While those gentlemen tender us war as the alternative, if we do 
not submit, yet, sir, not one word is said in the way of rebuke to 
those of the Republican party who have created the present storm; 
no demand is made of the Republican party to relinquish their un- 
constitutional encroachments — to give up pretensions inconsistent 
with our system of government and our political rights. There, 
appeal ought to be made, that our rights should be given to us, 
and that we should be secured in the enjoyment of them. Let that 
be done, and no arm and no voice will be raised against the Fede- 
ral Union. Deny us our rights, and we will face your messengers 
of death, and show you how freemen can die, or living, how they 
can maintain their rights. Mark that,. sir? 

Where, Mr. Chairman, is now our hope for conciliation ? Penn- 
sylvania and Vermont have already acted on the proposition to 
repeal their personal liberty bills, and they have refused to repeal 
those obnoxious and unconstitutional laws. The gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Cox] stated, yesterday, that he thought those laws would 
be repealed in Ohio. 

Mr. HALE. There are no personal liberty laws upon the statute- 
books of Pennsylvania. I know the statement has been made, but 
it has been corrected time and again. 

Mr. REAGAN. I refer the gentleman to his own statute-books. 
7 Mr. MORRILL. Let me say a word for Vermont. 

Mr, REAGrAN. I cannot allow myself to be interrupted con- 
stantly. 

Mr. MORRILL, I desire to correct a statement that the gentle- 
man has made. I know that he would not willingly misrepresent 
my State. Vermont, sir, has not refused to repeal her personal 
liberty bills. The matter was referred to a commission, and when 
that commission reports, the Legislature will then, I have no doubt, 
act on the subject. 

Mr. REAGAN". They have not repealed the personal liberty 
bill. That was ray statement ; and that statement is not denied. 
I do not believe that they will repeal them in the northern States. 
It does not lie in the mouths of our northern friends to ask us to 
believe them until they can promise with certainty that those laws 
will be repealed. We know that delay is death. We have already 
experienced some of the fruits of delays. 



11 

Wc want to tivert civil war if we can. Yet no etibrt has been 
made to give us what, under the Constitution, we ought to have. 
It is not proposed to give us what will reasonably make the south- 
ern people believe that they will have security in the Union. No 
such proposition can be made and sustained ; because, to give us 
our rights is to disband the Eepublican party. The existence of 
that party depends upon violating the Federal Constitution ; and 
in making war upon the institutions of the South. There is now 
an irrepressible conflict; and either the Federal Government or the 
Eepublican party must end. I am not here to paliate or to dodge 
one of the inevitable dangers that beset us. I am ready, for one, 
to face them all ; and I think that that is the better course for us 
all to pursue. When we all do that, then we will have a just under- 
standing of our relative positions. You all know that we cannot, 
and dare not, live in this Union, with our rights denied by the Re- 
publican party, Its ascendency is our destruction ; and, sir, its de- 
struction this day is the only salvation for the Union. . 

I will now, for a moment, refer to the arguments of the distin- 
guished gentlemen from Illinois and Ohio, [Messrs. McClernand 
and Cox.] As one member of this House, I want to give them an 
assurance that the anticipations they entertain, and upon which 
they base their arguments, can never be realized. I have been 
taught, from my earliest instruction in the theory and practice of 
our Government, that this is a Government of consent and agree- 
ment, as contradistinguished from a Government of force or a mili- 
tary despotism. It is bound to be one or the other. Which is it? 
It is a voluntary association of free, republican States, upon terms 
of equality or it is a military despotism, in which the Federal arm, 
through its Army and Navy, can subdue the States at wull, and 
force them to submit to an}' grievance which may emanate from 
the Federal Government or other States. Which of these posi- 
tions do my friends intend to assume. Assuming the principle 
that the Federal Government has the right to bind the States in all 
things, they go upon the hypothesis that their interests aud posi- 
tion will require them to command the outlet to the Gulf of Mexico 
and the forts upon the coast of Florida. I do not rise for the pur- 
pose of denying the right of passage to the Gulf; but I must ex- 
press my regrets that they talk in advance of cleaving their way to 
the Gulf by armies w^ith banners, before one man from all that 
countr}' has ever said that they should have any cause for war. 'No 
one has ever intended to deprive them of the beneiit of the navi- 
gation of the Mississippi. No one intends it to-day; so that if we 
are trampled upon by force, let me i:)roclaim to them and to the 
countr}', that they must place their action upon a diftereut ground, 
because we intend that they shall never have cause of war upon 
that account. 

Mr. McCLERNAND. The gentleman seems to refer to my re- 
marks of yesterday. 

Mr. REAGAN. The gentleman did not say so yesterday; but 
he did on a former day of the session. 



12 

Mr. McCLERNAND. Never. 

A Voice. It was said by the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Val- 

LAXDIGHAM.] 

Mr. REAGAjST. All I want to say is that our interest is peace, 
and our hopes are for peace. War is in opposition to all our inte- 
rests and our hopes. We want no war; and we intend to give no 
just cause for war, unless the attempt to separate ourselves peacea- 
bly from despotism, and to take care of our rights under a friendly 
government — and they would be destroyed under a hostile govern- 
ment — is a cause for war. We declare in advance that we will not 
interfere with your navigation of the Mississippi river. We know 
that is necessary for you ; but we cannot, because there may possi- 
bly be some conflict of interest between us, consent to surrender 
our liberties rather than assume the responsibility of organizing a 
government wiiich will cover the lower part of that river and the 
capes of Florida. 

The gentleman from Illinois made a statement yesterda}', such 
as I suppose a gallant and heroic man would make, if his proposi- 
tion was properly predicated. He said they could not submit to 
the control of the mouth of the Mississippi and the capes of Florida 
by us; that they would rather perish — perish, he said, with empha- 
sis — than submit to any other Power controlling the Mississippi, 
and commanding the coast of Florida. If such is the jealousy of 
the commercial rights only of his own section ; if he feels so keen 
and sensitive a jealousy, what would he think of us if, when our 
commerce, our homes, our property, our social and political posses- 
sions, for all time to come, are imperiled, we should, like trembling 
dastards, yield our rights ? A great heart like his would never ex- 
pect it; would never exact it. We prefer liberty, and all its con- 
sequences, to a temporary peace without honor; and the gentleman 
will justify us if, under such circumstances, we tell the North, and 
tell the world that we accept independence, with all its conse- 
quences, in preference to base submission, dishonor, and irretrieva- 
ble ruin. We shall have no cause of war. My section sympathizes 
with the gentleman from Illinois and his friends. They look upon 
them as defenders of the Constitution ; and it has been my pride 
on many a stump and in many a place, to eulogize by name the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. McClernand] and the gentleman from 
Ohio, [Mr. Cox,] with all their associates, for their gallant conduct, 
their moral courage, their heroic bearing, in standing up against 
northern fanaticism, and resisting its onward wave to the destruc- 
tion of the Constitution, the Union, and. our rights. Now, what 
will our people say when these speeches are printed and sent to them, 
and they see that these gentlemen are the first in this House who 
say that the assertion of our independence, when we can no longer 
live in this Government, shall invoke the cannon, the rifle, the 
sabre, and all the instruments of war? What will they say when 
they see that these gentlemen, who have long resisted abolitionism, 
defied its power, and been crushed down by its operations, are the 
very first to surrender at discretion in the face of the abolition 
enemy ? 



13 

Mr. McCLERNAjSTD. I belong to a particular association — a 
o;reat party — that occupies a distinct ground in this controversy 
upon the slavery question. We have been a Union party — a con- 
stitutional part}- — organized against the two extreme parties. We 
will not succumb to either, but continue to stand by the constitu- 
tional guarantees, as we have done in the past. 

Mr. REAGAN. I would always have expected from the gentle- 
man such a proposition. I know the gentleman's position well ; 
and what I ask him to consider is, what has brought us to our 
present condition ? If our rights had not been denied us — if our 
condition had not been imperiled — no voice would have been raised 
in the South for disunion. Will you compel us to submit to aboli- 
tion behests ? AVill you demand that we shall submit to destruc- 
tion at their hands ? I understand the position of those gentlemen ; 
but I ask them to review their words, and determine whether they 
are prepared to assert to the world and to the American people, that 
there is no remedy under this form of Government for the griev- 
ances, wrongs, and outrages inflicted upon a State; that we shall, 
under this Government, have no remedy; and that it is in the dis- 
cretion of the Federal Government to turn against us the cannon and 
the glittering sabre. Is such the Government under which we live? 
Is such the Government for w^hich Washington and his compatriots 
battled ? Is such the Government framed by Jeiferson and Madison 
and their associates ? No. It is a Government of consent, a Go- 
vernment of agreement, a voluntary Confederation, in which no 
power was conferred to use force against a State, in order to reduce 
her to subjection. In the convention whioh framed it, a proposition 
of such a character was otiered and rejected by the convention ; and 
by the constitution itself, Congress can only exercise the powers 
specifically delegated to it. 

I have but one word more to say. I live for to the South. We 
have a long Mexican boundary, and a long Indian frontier, infested 
by hostile savages throughout its whole extent; and yet this Gov- 
ernment has refused for years to defend us against them. We have 
a long coast, open to the approach of a naval force, and we know 
the consequences of our acts, and we know what may follow an at- 
tempt to take care of ourselves and our liberty; but we remember, 
at the same time, the history of the past. Less than twenty-five 
years ago Texas stood a province of Mexico, with a population of 
not more than thirty thousand, entitled to the privileges of Mexican 
citizens, including all ages and sexes. We lived under the Mexi- 
can Constitution of 1824, which the Texans fought to sustain. That 
Constitution was subverted by a military despot; and our liberties 
were trampled in the dust. That despot came against us with in- 
vading armies for our subjugation, He intended to overawe us by 
display of military power, as the President and General Scott are 
now attempting to do with the southern States. The thirty thousand 
people of Texas resisted that powder for the sake of liberty and those 
rights to which we were entitled, trusting to the God of battles and 
the justice of their cause. In that great struggle companies and 



14 

battalions fell to rise no more. The}' sank nobly for freedom, as 
freemen Avill sink again for her cause whenever you sluiU tender to 
us that alternative. Upon the field of San Jacinto they won their 
liberty by their brave hearts and their stalwart arms. They vindi- 
cated that liberty for ten or twelve years after ; and then as a pledge 
of their love to this Union, and their confidence in its principles, 
and desire for its prosperity and its happiness, that the people ten- 
dered Texas, a free and voluntary ofl'ering, to come in as one of the 
States of the Union, upon terms of equality with the other States. 

But we were told yesterday that we sold ourselves. The gentle- 
man did not mean exactly what his language would imply : but he 
must see how oti'ensive such kind of remarks must be to those who 
do not appreciate the use he intended to make of the argument. 
Texas cost this Government not one cent. She vindicated her 
liberty by her arms ; and rendered to civil and religious liberty a 
country as large as the six New England States, and New York, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, and Indiana, all put together. She 
redeemed it from Catholic priestcraft, and military despotism, and 
has covered it over with five hundred thousand freemen, a prospe- 
rous and happy people ; and they are prepared to vindicate their 
liberties when they are encroached upon again by a despotism of 
one or of many men. 

It is true, that war grew out of the annexation of Texas ; and I 
suppose it is that with which the gentleman charges Texas. But 
this government knew what it was doing when it was acquiring dp- 
minion over that countr}^, and adding to the United States to aid in 
building up its commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing in- 
terests. But they also acquired New Mexico and Utah, and the 
great golden State of California, by that war, and extended their 
power and dominion to the Pacific ocean. And that it was the 
gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Cox,] and the friends of those measures, 
now sneeringly refer to in their reference to the purchase of Texas. 
I was sorry to hear it. 

Allusion has also been made to the fact that ^10,000,000 were 
subsequently paid for a portion of the domain of Texas, to some of 
which, it is said, she had no title. I have no time to enter into an 
argument upon that question. The Federal Government took up 
our quarrel for that boundary. As our agent, she obtained the 
title deed for us. No lawyer will say that it lay with her to dispute 
our title. She then ofiered us §10,000,000 for a part of this laud- 
eighty or a hundred thousand square miles of it. Texas accepted 
the oti:er. Shall the representatives of the Federal Government now 
taunt us with the statement that Texas has been bought for a price 
and paid for? Why, this government only bought a portion of 
Texas. She has that now. It is not in the jurisdiction of Texas. 
This Government proposed the trade. Texas assented to it. Was 
there anything in this to call for contemptuous taunts ? We made 
no sale to this Government of what is now Texas. But Texas did 
give to this Government, freely and voluntarily, her sovereignty 
and the dominion of all her vast and fertile domain, and ought to 



be exempt from the contemptuous charge of having been bought. 
It is wholly untrue, and self-respect should prevent the making of 
sucli a charge. 

Mr. Chairman, there are other subjects which I had hoped to 
discuss this morning, but I will not trespass on the patience of the 
House by discussing them now. I have to say in the end, that yet, 
almost hopeless as it seems, I would be glad to see an eftbrt made 
towards conciliation. Above all things I stand here to invoke 
members to look upon this question as one which involves the in- 
terests and destiny of States ; to warn them that they are making 
advances against fifteen States, with thirteen million people, and 
with more than two-thirds of the exports of the country ; against a 
people who understand all these questions, and who are not to be 
misled or deceived by special pleading ; a people who never in- 
tended or wished to raise their voice against the Federal Govern- 
ment, and who never would have done so if they had been let alone. 
Remember that we only ask you to let us alone — nothing else. 
Give us security in the Union. Respect our rights in the common 
Territories. So act among yourselves as to let us know that we 
need no longer live under continual fear of the consequences of 
your action. 

I must sa}'^ that the very State from which I came, the very dis- 
trict which I represent, has had some painful experience during the 
last summer, growing out of the doctrines of abolitionism. We 
found, for tlie last two or three years, that the members of the Me- 
thodist Church iSIorth, and others, living in Texas, were propaga- 
ting abolition doctrines there, "We warned them not to carry on 
their schemes of producing disaffection among our negroes; but 
they persisted, and did not cease until they had organized a society 
called the "Mystic Red." Under its auspices, the night before the 
last August election the towns were to be burned and the people 
murdered. There now lie in ashes near a dozen towns and villages 
in my district. Four of them were county seats, and two of them 
the best towns in the district. The poisonings were only arrested 
by information which came to light before the plan could be carried 
into execution. The citizens were forced to stand guard for months, 
so that no man could have passed through the towns between dark 
and daylight without making himself known. A portion of them 
paid the penalty of their crimes. Others were driven out of the 
country. These things had their effect on the public mind. They 
were the results of abolition teachings; a part of the irrepressible 
condict ; a part of the legitimate fruits of Republicanism. 

[Here the hammer fell.] 



"W. H. Moore, Printer, Washington, D. C. 



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